‘Indiana Jones civilization’ 2,000-year-old temple found submerged off Italian coast

Archaeologists have found the stays of a 2,000-year-old temple submerged off the Italian coast close to Naples, seemingly constructed by immigrants from Nabataea, an historical Arabian kingdom. 

Nabataea is thought for Petra’s iconic rock-carved buildings, together with the Treasury, famously featured in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

The Nabataean kingdom as soon as managed a commerce community stretching from northern Arabia to the Mediterranean, dealing in incense, gold, ivory, and perfumes. Their wealth peaked within the first century A.D., exemplified by Petra’s Treasury.

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The temple, thought to have been utilized by Nabataean merchants, was later buried underneath concrete and pottery, probably because of the merchants leaving the realm, in accordance with a research printed in Antiquity on September 12.

Student Michele Stefanile with the Scuola Superiore Meridionale in Italy first started the underwater research in 2021 to look the realm.

Camels seen in entrance of The Treasury in Petra, a well-known archaeological website. Petra is a UNESCO World Heritage website and one of many seven wonders of the world. Formerly an historical Nabataean capital, immediately Petra is inhabited by The Bidoul Bedouins. (Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket by way of Getty Images)

“When I was a student, I was impressed by the presence of some Nabatean material found somewhere in the sea in Puteoli since the XVIII century, and I was also astonished that nobody really organized a hunt for this impressive historical testimony.,” mentioned Michele Stefanile, a maritime archaeologist on the Southern Graduate School in Naples to Fox News Digital.

The temple lies close to Pozzuoli, round 10 miles east of Naples. During Roman occasions, Pozzuoli was referred to as Puteoli and served as a buying and selling port.

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In 2023, researchers mapping the seafloor found two submerged rooms with Roman-style partitions. The rooms, about 32 by 16 toes, contained two white marble altars, every with rectangular recesses that seemingly held sacred stones.

“It seems that we have a building dedicated to the Nabataean gods, but with Roman architecture and Latin inscription,” Stefanile mentioned to Live Science.

Aerial view of a recently-discovered Nabataean temple off the coast of Napoli in Italy. (Michele Stefanile, Antiquity)

Marble slabs within the rooms had been inscribed in Latin with the phrase “Dusari sacrum,” which means “consecrated to Dushara,” the deity of the Nabataean folks.

Volcanic exercise over centuries has submerged about 1.2 miles of Roman-era buildings close to Pozzuoli, together with warehouses and different buildings from the traditional port. Artifacts recovered for the reason that 18th century advised a temple may be buried there, however its precise location was unknown till now.

Underwater photographs taken by Michele Stefanile present leftover slabs from the Nabataean temple. (Michele Stefanile, Antiquity)

“Possibly after Trajan’s conquest of Arabia in 106 A.D., the Nabataeans had no more possibility of free trading in Puteoli, and they possibly abandoned the harbor,” Stefanile mentioned to Live Science.

After Nabataea was annexed into the Roman Empire in A.D. 106, the inland commerce routes managed by the Nabataeans collapsed. The temple at Puteoli might have been buried in response to those modifications.

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“The entire region is characterized by an intense volcanic activity, that caused the submersion of the whole ancient coastal strip at a depth of 0-6 meters,” in accordance with the Scuola Superirore Meridionale.